THE University of the West Indies (UWI) has launched a Zika task force that will leverage the university’s extensive public health capabilities and coordinate its efforts with regional governments and health ministries to combat the virus.
UWI’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles announced this week that Professor Clive Landis, Deputy Principal of the Cave Hill, Barbados campus, will chair the regional task force that will comprise eminent scholars, scientists and public health experts.
The move comes in the wake of news that three pregnant women in Barbados have contracted the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne illness which has been linked to birth defects.
The latest results from the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) bring the number of confirmed cases in the island to seven.
The Barbados Ministry of Health said in a statement that the three women have been notified of the results and have been counselled.
UWI said the task force will help inform an aggressive and scientifically based prevention strategy to eliminate breeding sites for Aedes aegypti mosquito.
“The Task Force will work closely with the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) and the ministries to pool resources to research and analyze the Zika outbreak and associated health complications in the Caribbean, and conduct economic impact studies and engage with Ministries on outbreak preparedness,” it said.
“A regional observatory will collate, organize and disseminate information about the virus and will make the university’s expertise accessible to researchers, government agencies, schools, health facilities and members of the general public.”
The UWI task force will also convene a major symposium within the next three to four weeks, involving regional ministries of health, donor agencies, national and regional public health agencies and tourism stakeholders.
“The rapid spread of the Zika virus poses serious regional challenges at the levels of public health and safety and sustainable economic development, and as a regional university we have a duty and a responsibility to confront these challenges head on,” said Sir Hilary.
The Vice Chancellor also noted that the UWI is in a good position to work with international donor agencies in order to access resources to facilitate and implement its strategy, and to collaborate with universities and research teams across the hemisphere.
If those “eminent scholars, scientists and public health experts” are of the calibre of Dr. Margaret Chan of WHO, then all we will get is an expansion the Zika hoax.
The Zika virus is extremely benign, merely causing flu-like symptoms lasting at most 10 days, in those afflicted by it; it has been patently owned by the Rockefeller Foundation since 1947.
Who stands to gain from this hoax, which implies that Zika is now pandemic, and poses un-named and un-identified “serious regional challenges at the levels of public health and safety and sustainable economic development”?